22260: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Haiti's cocaine connection (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Thu, Jun. 03, 2004


Haiti's cocaine connection

BY JOE MOZINGO

Miami Herald


GONAIVES, Haiti - The plane came from the south, as they all do, touching
down on the dirt road here as a police convoy rumbled in from the capital to
greet it.

In the scrub nearby, dozens of neighbors watched from their huts.

Presence Jae, a charcoal-maker and father of four, had seen the planes many
times before that day in January, and he figured just a pound of its
merchandise could forever deliver him from his bare-earth existence. But he
was uninterested .

''I don't get involved,'' Jae said. ``These guys have large weapons.''

For the last two decades, cocaine has corrupted much of the Haitian
government so thoroughly that police in full uniform and plain view
regularly cordon off highways to let smugglers' planes land, according to
Western officials, court affidavits in Miami and countless Haitian residents
who have watched the practice for years.

So much money is at stake that candidates for key law-enforcement jobs pay
upwards of $200,000 to get the posts, knowing they can earn it back in
bribes from cocaine shipments, according to the Western officials, who
monitor drug trafficking.

Now, with a new U.S.-backed government in place and a multinational
peacekeeping force on the ground, the flow of cocaine through this
impoverished nation continues to flow unabated, despite a spate of recent
arrests, the sources said. And they fear that some Haitians are vying for
key positions in the new government to reap future drug profits.

SAME AS BEFORE

At least one plane carrying 500 to 1,000 kilos of cocaine lands in Haiti
almost every day -- the same rate as in the months leading up to Feb. 29,
when former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide left the country amid a revolt,
the officials said.

''Drug trafficking is the only thing that consistently works here,'' one
Western diplomat said.

U.S. officials estimate that 7 to 15 percent of the cocaine reaching U.S.
streets flows through Haiti. The money that traffickers pay to make sure
their cargo gets safely through is one of the country's biggest revenue
sources.

So lucrative is the business that many observers suspect that the rebels who
helped drive Aristide out of power did so, in part, to seize control of the
drug channels. Rebel leader Guy Philippe has been accused of drug
trafficking when he was police chief in northern Haiti, and Western
officials said they suspect that drug profits financed his rebel group -- a
charge Philippe vehemently denies.

WEAK LINK

Haiti is a natural stepping point for cocaine between Colombia and the
United States; a weak link midway between traffickers with unlimited
supplies and Americans with endless appetites.

''There is so much money in drugs and the country is so poor, it will
corrupt any government,'' said Leslie Voltaire, a former Aristide Cabinet
member. ``As the African proverb says, when the elephants fight, the grass
gets trampled.''

With the recent revolt, the extent of the problem is just becoming public.
In the last two months, U.S. agents have arrested four senior Aristide-era
security officials on drug charges, including the heads of palace security
and the police drug squad. Tuesday, they arrested Fourel Celestin, a former
president of the Senate.

Using information from several defendants-turnedinformants, prosecutors are
trying to build a case against Aristide himself. His Miami attorney, Ira
Kurzban, has said Aristide fought the drug trade, and that the inquiry is
politically motivated.

Whether the agents will go after other factions allegedly involved in the
drug trade -- Philippe's rebels, upper-class bankers and corrupt officials
of pre-Aristide regimes -- remains to be seen.

Some say the United States is using the drug arrests and investigations as a
means to influence Haitian politics.

''It's a way for the U.S. to deter certain people from thinking they can get
into politics,'' said Robert Fatton Jr., a Haiti expert at the University of
Virginia.

No one knows exactly how much Haitians collect in so-called transit fees to
get the product through the country. A low estimate is 5 percent of the
coke's wholesale price in the United States. At a minimum, that would pump
$220 million into Haiti every year, drug experts say.

But Haitian economists and U.S. officials say it's likely a close second to
the country's other major revenue stream -- the estimated $800 million a
year in remittances from Haitians abroad.

''Without these two sources of hard income, it would be very hard to live in
this country,'' said Kesner Pharel, an economist and chairman of the
consulting firm Group Croissance.

Pharel said the drug money shows up mainly in the housing sector. East of
Port-au-Prince, builders are turning empty hills into gated neighborhoods of
new mansions.

MANY SIGNS

But there are many signs of the drug economy. More high-end SUVs than ever
navigate the country's poor roads. And down in the slums, crack cocaine -- a
rarity until recent years -- is now common. The rocks cost a tenth of what
they do in the States -- just over 50 cents.

In a stifling hot shack in Port-au-Prince, three men and two women recently
gathered on a mattress to get their fix. The apple-sweet smoke drifted out
of a pipe made from an old medicine jar.

''I would like to stop,'' said Michael Morency, 51, a father of four and
owner of the six-by-eight-foot crack house. ``The treatment here is too
expensive.''

The emergence of crack cocaine over the past several years is blamed for an
increase in robberies and violent attacks. But no one knows how many addicts
the drug trade has produced here.

The main victim of drug trafficking in Haiti is the perpetually weak justice
system.

The Judiciary Police, which oversees the narcotics squad and investigates
crimes, ''has always been considered the most profitable position,'' because
of the opportunity for taking drug bribes, a European diplomatic source
said.

When the drug squad of the national police staged a media event to burn
bricks of cocaine it had seized, U.S. agents found that what they had
destroyed was mostly flour, a Western source said. The cocaine had vanished.

Now, Jean Claude Jean, the newly appointed head of the narcotics bureau, has
the daunting task of fighting a tide of cocaine with 53 officers who earn
$150 a month. His squad has no radar to monitor incoming planes and only two
Toyota pickups to patrol the entire nation.

Drug seizures are recorded in a frayed ledger. Seven years of them fill just
53 pages.

A big bust might net 68 kilos, Jean said, a fraction of what is estimated to
come in every day.

''I'm operating with what little means I have,'' he said.

Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of narcotics here is that Haiti has so
little to show for its role in such a lucrative trade.

''They don't build roads and hospitals and things like that,'' said Jackie
Geleese, 37, a resident in Gonaives.

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